BALTIMORE, Md. - The nationally ranked No. 19 Ithaca College women's volleyball team was back in action on Friday evening and came out on the losing end of a three et sweep to the No. 3 ranked Johns Hopkins University volleyball team (17-25, 26-28, 23-25).
 
The first set led off with the Ithaca Bombers and the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays trading points, with no team gaining more than a one-point lead for the first 13 points. Shortly after the Blue Jays would start to take control of the set and build a lead as big as eight points over the Bombers. Contributing to this was a Blue Jays five-point run. Ithaca would close the gap on John Hopkins in the first set with a four-point run of their own, but John Hopkins was able to get six of the last seven points to secure the victory 25-17.
 
The second set would start off the same as the first with a lot of back-and-forth play between the Blue Jays and the Bombers. The back and forth would last a lot longer in the second set than it did in the first set though, with neither team gaining a three-point lead until late in the game when Ithaca led 19-16.
 
Arguably, the best play of the game came late in the second set when Gabriela Gonzalez-Abreu went sprinting to the back of the court to send the ball back over the net, and on her way back was forced to make a diving save off a John Hopkins kill helping Ithaca get to 20 points. 
 
Ithaca would suffer a disappointing loss in game two, having had four attempts at match point to close out the game. Ithaca also blew a late three-point lead when they led 19-16, and they would ultimately fall in the second game 28-26.
 
Set number three started the exact same as the first two with a lot of back-and-forth play between these two teams. Ithaca built a late four-point lead, but Johns Hopkins quickly closed the gap getting seven of the next 10 points to tie the game 20-20. John Hopkins then closed out the third set, and completed the sweep, with a victory 25-23.
 
The Bombers' played a hard-fought match with Ella Graper recording 15.5 points, and Gonzalez recording 11 points. Graper also had 12 kills on the night. Julia Costa led the team with 10 digs.
 
Ithaca is in action again on Saturday, September 14 against Susquehanna University at 10 a.m. and against Marymount University at 3 p.m. to continue the action in the JHU Greg "Gio" Giovanazzi Memorial Tournament.